SEO or PPC...or Both?

According to a new study by Engine Ready, based on traffic to 26 e-retail sites in a 12-month period that ended June 30, visitors who arrive at a retailer's site from paid search ads are 50% more likely to buy than those who come from clicking on a natural search link. The conversion rate from paid search is 2.03% versus 1.26% from organic search, according to the study as reported by Internet Retailer.

 

From Wikipedia:

Pay per click (PPC) is an Internet advertising model, used on websites, in which advertisers pay their host only when their ad is clicked. With search engines (SEO),  advertisers typically bid on keyword phrases relevant to their target market.

 

The current study is a follow up of a completed two year study in 2008 to identify the magnitude of any visitor behavioral trends based on traffic source in a way that could help marketers adjust their strategies to maximize value. Although there can be an almost endless number of individual traffic sources, notes the study, this study, identified and measured 4 primary traffic source categories that encapsulate all source origins:

• Organic listings
• Paid listings
• Direct access and bookmarks
• Other referrer  

Most likely to buy are consumers who navigate directly to a retailer's site by typing in a URL or clicking on a bookmark, as their conversion rate registered at 7.38%. Consumers who came to an e-commerce site from another site or an e-mail converted at 6.58%, the study shows. The overall conversion rate was 3.6%.  The study found that:

• Paid search visitors bought the most, with an average order value of $117.06 versus $109.27 for those coming from other sites, $106.64 for visitors from organic search and $95.29 from direct referrals, such as from a bookmark or direct entry of a URL
• Average order value for all retailers in the study was $104.21, down 31.7% from a previous Engine Ready study that analyzed data from a two-year period that ended December 2007. Retailers said average order values from all channels have declined in the past 12 to 18 months
• The average time on a site per visit increased 5.8% from the previous study to 4 minutes, 33 seconds. Consumers who navigated directly to a site spent 5 minutes, 8 seconds. The study found consumers who spent more time on a site were more likely to buy, but that their average order value was not higher than that of other buyers
• Site visitors on average viewed 5.2 pages per visit, up 15.6% from the previous study. Those who came directly or from other sites or e-mail viewed the most pages, 6.2 on average
• Average number of seconds on a page dropped 9% from the earlier study to 53 seconds, which could be a sign marketers are doing a better job of presenting information on their pages in a more easily readable format, the study says. Paid search visitors spent the most time on a page, 66 seconds on average.
• 43.9% of all visitors left after viewing just one page, down slightly from 44.5% in the earlier study. Organic search produced the highest bounce rate, 48.5%, and direct access the lowest, 39.2%
• Direct access produced the largest share of site visits (40%), followed by other referring sites and e-mail (27.9%), paid search (19.8%) and organic search (12.3%)

This study is based on an analysis of 20.8 million visits and 108 million page views to 26 e-commerce sites from July 1, 2008, through June 30, 2009. 21 of the 27 companies in the latest study also provided data for the earlier Engine Ready study.

 

For additional information from InternetRetailer on this report, please visit here, and to access the PDF fileof the 2008 study, please go to Engine Ready here.

When is it Time For An E-Commerce Site Redesign?

We have talked about this topic many times before when trying to understand why ecommerce merchants are not doing better in selling prodcuts online.  Just having an ecommerce Website is not good enough!!!

I thought that this article could prove helpful to those who are considering a Website redesign and to many who should redsign their Website.

- Chip Arndt

From Tim Perry

August 11, 2009

"When do you know it's time to redesign your e-commerce site? That question was posed to a panel of three merchants during a session at eTail in Baltimore last week, and no one person had the same answer.

But all three answers did have one common theme: If enough customers tell you that parts of your Website are affecting the shopping experience, then a redesign may be in order...."

Click here to read more...the post is very helpful!

FitBase Provides Valuable Information For Ecommerce Merchants

Many of our ecommerce clients at MerchantAdvantage have asked for additonal information to our white papers and client-side Webinars to make better business and online marketing decisons.  We all know that there’s a lot of information out there – google search, MSN search, Yahoo! search, blogs, industry websites, white papers, even newsletters -- which MerchantAdvantage also sends out each month. 

Okay, all of this is good. After all, knowledge IS power.  But what about too much knowledge?  Having so much information that it is all white noise?  The real question is where do we find the "right" information easily that we can act on today.  Albeit, how do we make heads or tails of the abundance of data available to anyone with an internet connection?

Well, friends of eTaildTail at FitForCommerce have pondered those questions – and have come up with a great answer: FitBase.  

In addition to their core eCommerce consultancy business, they have launched an online knowledge base of all things eCommerce. Now before you become skeptical of "another" site claiming to be the "one-stop-shop" for ecommerce related informaton -- I hear what you’re probably saying now: "...just what we need Chip – MORE information!"  

Okay, point taken. 

However, FitBase provides information in an organized, structured and intuitive manner, with apples-to-apples comparisons, benchmarking data on 1,000s of eCommerce features, and easy to follow, categorized "Best Practices" advice and resources in one place.  This even includes surveys, statistics and provider and solution details for vendors in over 30 different categories.   And, it is all presented in an easy-to-use solution finder interface that finds information and resources that most likely to fit your business ecommerce needs.

There’s only one thing to say. Phew. 

And I am glad to point you in their direction. It has been a great help to me, so check it out here and I believe it will help you too.

Enjoy.

- Chip Arndt

Insider Edition: The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing - TheFind.com

Insider Edition:  The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing

eTaildTail is excited to continue its oning series called: Insider Edition: The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing, over the past several weeks we had great conversations with several shopping destination sites/marketing channels.

eTaildTail knows that using consumer shopping engines ("CSE"s) can help online retailers increase sales at a price they can afford, although many ecommerce merchants still are hesitant to work with CSEs for a myriad of reasons.

The most notable three reasons are:

1. lack of familiarity with a particular marketing channel
2. lack of evidence that a marketing channel increases sales cost effectively, and
3. difficulty of working with a marketing channel

As part of eTaildTail's 2009 effort to educate online retailers as to the many, cost-effective marketing channels available to them to list their product catalog, eTaildTail will interview executives at various CSEs and marketing channels and ask them to help us undertstand their value to growing an online merchant's sales and revenues.

eTaildTail hopes that these online Q&A sessions give you, the online merchant, pertinent information as to a particular marketing channel and the potential benefits of working with them.  And, if you decide to work them then great, please let them know that eTaildTail sent you their way.

So let's get started with an interview with TheFind.com and its Senior Director of Business Development, Rob Ulveling.  All interviews are conducted by Chip Arndt, an author of eTaildTail. 

If you would like to contact TheFind.com and Rob Ulveling you may email me at tips @ merchantadvantage.com and eTaildTail would be glad to accommodate you, or see below.

Insider Edition:  The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing – TheFind.com

TheFind.com's Secrets to CSE Marketing Success for Online Merchants

Interview with Rob Ulveling by Chip Arndt, eTaildTail author.

1. When was TheFind.com founded and by whom?

In February 2005, a little over four years ago, theFind got going with its first venture financing. Our CEO Siva Kumar is one of the two co-founders of the company.

2. What sets TheFind.com apart from the other consumer shopping engines?

TheFind is a vertical search engine for shopping that is designed to simply find it all. Our mission is to make every product, every store, every sale, coupon and discount, instantaneously accessible to shoppers.

Just like Google and Yahoo, TheFind crawls the entire Web and finds all of the store Web sites. TheFind also accepts feeds from qualified sources like Merchant Advantage. Then, with patented search technology TheFind helps shoppers discover everything that online shopping, local shopping, and now, green shopping have to offer, so that they can quickly find the lowest price, the best deal, or that hard-to-find item.

Over 320 million products from more than 500,000 stores and online merchants are currently universally accessible through TheFind.com, TheFind Mobile, and TheFind iPhone App, making TheFind the leading source for comprehensive product information in the US.

3. What are the secrets to success for merchants advertising on TheFind.com?

The most successful merchants take advantage of the breadth and diversity of product searches on TheFind, by making sure that every product they sell is part of our index. To ensure that all their items are included merchants can help our crawler by following the best practices for SEO that are recommended for Google.

In addition, merchants can benefit by having robust and detailed product descriptions on their pages, showing clearly marked pricing and sale information, and making sure they have large product images. Merchants can also choose to augment our crawl by working through Merchant Advantage to supply a detailed and comprehensive data feed.

In the feed, they should add in any coupons and shipping offers that they may be currently running as we include those alongside relevant product search results to help drive more sales. In a typical month we send qualified consumer clicks to over 50,000 merchants. By advertising product listings on TheFind on a CPA basis, a merchant's relevant product matches will show up higher than other equivalent products,driving more qualified traffic and more sales within ROI metrics.

4. Who is using TheFind.com and why?

Last month over 11.5 million people visited TheFind, a growth of over 1,200% from a year ago. The feedback we consistently get from shoppers is that TheFind is able track down even the hardest-to-find items, which makes us a trusted and valued shopping destination.

Two-thirds of the searches on TheFind are in the following categories: apparel and accessories, health and beauty, jewelry, home and garden, and sports and outdoors. But with our large index (over 320 million products - over 20 times what is on most comparison shopping engines) we see consumer searches in every possible retail category - from auto parts and craft supplies to musical instruments and pet supplies! So no matter how small or how large you are and what kind of products you
sell, we have qualified shoppers looking for what you have to offer.

5. What are some of the challenges you are seeing in the retail sector during the current economic downturn, and what are you doing to overcome them?

What has been interesting during these tough economic times is that our traffic continues to grow every month. This we think reflects the trend that multi-channel retailers are seeing in that their growth coming from the online sector as opposed to offline sales. Shoppers are increasingly turning online in order to save time and money.

We are also seeing a strong demand for sale items, coupons, and free shipping offers and by including such information directly as part of our product search results, we deliver greater benefits to hard hit consumers in these recessionary times.
We see e-commerce only growing stronger as a channel, and are optimistic about what this will mean for the 2009 online Holiday Season.

Bonus Q: How do I get to work with TheFind.com as an ecommerce merchant?

We probably already crawl your e-commerce site and we would encourage you to follow the set of guidelines in answer #3 above.

You should definitely talk to your Merchant Advantage representative and discuss the ways in which they can help you gain an advantage over your peers in benefiting from TheFind's breadth and diversity of product search traffic.

They can help you with advertising options to drive more qualified traffic to your site. Small and medium-sized merchants can especially gain from the many different categories in which our consumers are looking for great products to buy.

Chip: Thank you so much Rob for your time and insights on how online merchants can benefit by working with TheFind.com

If you want to keep up with all entries as they relate to Insider Edition:  The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing, please click on "Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing" under categories on the left hand side of the eTaildTail blog.

- Chip Arndt

Insider Edition: The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing - Become.com

Insider Edition:  The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing

eTaildTail is excited to continue its oning series called: Insider Edition: The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing, over the past several weeks we had great conversations with several shopping destination sites/marketing channels.

eTaildTail knows that using consumer shopping engines ("CSE"s) can help online retailers increase sales at a price they can afford, although many ecommerce merchants still are hesitant to work with CSEs for a myriad of reasons.

The most notable three reasons are:

1. lack of familiarity with a particular marketing channel
2. lack of evidence that a marketing channel increases sales cost effectively, and
3. difficulty of working with a marketing channel

As part of eTaildTail's 2009 effort to educate online retailers as to the many, cost-effective marketing channels available to them to list their product catalog, eTaildTail will interview executives at various CSEs and marketing channels and ask them to help us undertstand their value to growing an online merchant's sales and revenues.

eTaildTail hopes that these online Q&A sessions give you, the online merchant, pertinent information as to a particular marketing channel and the potential benefits of working with them.  And, if you decide to work them then great, please let them know that eTaildTail sent you their way.

So let's get started with an interview with Become.com and its Director of Business Development & Sales, Lee Cohen.  All interviews are conducted by Chip Arndt, an author of eTaildTail. 

If you would like to contact Become.com and Lee Cohen you may email me at tips @ merchantadvantage.com and eTaildTail would be glad to accommodate you, or see below.

 

  Insider Edition:  The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing – Become.com

Become.com's Secrets to CSE Marketing Success for Online Merchants

Interview with Lee Cohen by Chip Arndt, eTaildTail author... and check out the photo below of the very helpful and "cool" team at Become.com! We love them!

1. When was Become.com founded and by whom?

Become.com was founded in 2004 by Michael Yang, former founder of mySimon – the web’s first comparison search engine.

2. What sets Become.com apart from the other consumer shopping engines?

Become.com is a site that combines product research and comparison shopping, allowing shoppers to access product information and make better buying decisions.

Users can take advantage of Become.com’s research engine to search over 5 billion web pages of information—buying guides, product reviews, discussion forums and more—and then comparison shop on the same site to find the right product for their lifestyle and budget.

Whether online shoppers are looking for an ATV part or a home theater system , Become.com’s research and comparison shopping engine helps them get the information they need to make the best buying decision. With over 25 million products and over 5,000 stores, we’ve made it easy for users to find everything they need to shop on one site.

3. What are the secrets to success for merchants advertising on Become.com?

There are no real secrets to success, just a simple 3-prong approach –

1. Relevant titles & descriptions
2. ROI Tracker Integration and
3. Use of our marketing vehicles

 Here is a brief explanation of each of these:

1. Relevant Titles and Descriptions – Adding descriptive keyword information to your titles and descriptions helps your products appear for the right user queries. When consumers find what they are looking for, they buy which means higher conversions for our retailers.

2. ROI Tracker Integration – integrating our state-of-the-art ROI Tracker gives us visibility into which products are selling best for our retailers on Become.com. How does this help you sell more? Let’s say you are a jewelry retailer and you list 50 pearl bracelets with Become.com, our algorithm has no visibility into which of these bracelets is a popular, top seller. Integrating the ROI Tracker allows our algorithm to identify the best selling bracelet for a particular query and display it.

3. Marketing Tools – Become.com offers retailers multiple marketing tools to best showcase your products on our site. Here are is list of our most popular marketing vehicles:

Bidding – Become.com is a dynamic bidding system where retailers can bid for preferred placement both on a category level (in the dashboard) or on a product level (in the feed)

Free Logo Placement with a $0.10+ Bid – Retailers can bid $0.10 or more to receive not only better placement on the page but also free logo placement

Promo Text – An additional $0.05 (for soft goods) and $0.10 (for tech products) allows our retailers to place promotional language alongside their listings. Some popular uses of this are “3-Day Sale” and “Free Shipping” . 

Free %-Off Sticker – When retailers provide us the MSRP as well as the selling price in the feed, our system will automatically calculate the % off and display that saving free of charge to the users. This is a great way for retailers to showcase great deals and low prices!

4. Who is using Become.com and why?

Become.com has over 10 Million unique monthly visitors. 60% of our visitors are women searching for great deals on the latest shoes, clothing and household items. Our male users tend to search for discounted gps systems, HDTV and computers. 

Here are some success stories of shoppers on Become.com: http://www.become.com/success_story.html 

Become.com’s shopping blog is frequented by online shoppers looking for the latest in fashion, gadgets, gift ideas for events and product reviews.

5. What are some of the challenges you are seeing in the retail sector during the current economic downturn, and what are you doing to overcome them?

Consumers are more deal focused than ever before and retailers need to use every vehicle available to showcase these deals. One of Become.com’s newest features is % Off – this is a FREE tools retailers can use to showcase their low prices and great deals. Additionally, even in this down economy, retailers still need to make sales.

At Become.com we are committed to driving the highest quality, most qualified traffic to our retail partners to ensure that ROI and conversion metrics are met.

Bonus Q: How do I get to work with Become.com as an ecommerce merchant?

We are happy to answer any questions you have about listing your products on Become.com. We can even set you up right over the phone! You can give us a call at 408-215-4700 ext. 2 for Sales or email us at sales@become.com and if you mention “etaildtail” we’ll give you $50 in FREE CLICKS!

Chip: Thank you so much Lee for your time and insights on how online merchants can benefit by working with Become.com

If you want to keep up with all entries as they relate to Insider Edition:  The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing, please click on "Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing" under categories on the left hand side of the eTaildTail blog.

- Chip Arndt

Insider Edition: The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing - SortPrice.com

Insider Edition:  The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing

eTaildTail is excited to continue its oning series called: Insider Edition: The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing, over the past several weeks we had great conversations with several shopping destination sites/marketing channels.

eTaildTail knows that using consumer shopping engines ("CSE"s) can help online retailers increase sales at a price they can afford, although many ecommerce merchants still are hesitant to work with CSEs for a myriad of reasons.

The most notable three reasons are:

1. lack of familiarity with a particular marketing channel
2. lack of evidence that a marketing channel increases sales cost effectively, and
3. difficulty of working with a marketing channel

As part of eTaildTail's 2009 effort to educate online retailers as to the many, cost-effective marketing channels available to them to list their product catalog, eTaildTail will interview executives at various CSEs and marketing channels and ask them to help us undertstand their value to growing an online merchant's sales and revenues.

eTaildTail hopes that these online Q&A sessions give you, the online merchant, pertinent information as to a particular marketing channel and the potential benefits of working with them.  And, if you decide to work them then great, please let them know that eTaildTail sent you their way.

So let's get started with an interview with SortPrice and its Founder, Doron Simovitch.  All interviews are conducted by Chip Arndt, an author of eTaildTail. 

If you would like to contact SortPrice and Doron Simovitch you may email me at tips @ merchantadvantage.com and eTaildTail would be glad to accommodate you, or see below.

 Insider Edition:  The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing – SortPrice.com

SortPrice's Secrets to CSE Marketing Success for Online Merchants

Interview with Doron Simovitch by Chip Arndt, eTaildTail author.

1. When was SortPrice.com founded and by whom?

Sortprice was founded in 2004 by Doron Simovitch and Asaf Klibansky, both of whom have backgrounds in technology and e-commerce.  The aim was to establish a shopping search engine that offered merchants a fairer, more cost-effective means of expanding their online advertising reach while giving shoppers a site that is fun, easy-to-use and provides real value.

2. What sets SortPrice.com apart from the other consumer shopping engines?

We pride ourselves on building and maintaining very strong relationships with our merchants. We genuinely want them to succeed and everything we do, from sales to our tech support team, is geared towards establishing trust with them in a personal way.

Unlike most of our competitors, we do not use a pay-per-click pricing model for our merchant listings. Instead, we offer monthly flat-fee based pricing.  This model negates the possibility of click fraud, which we’ve seen can have a devastating impact on a retailer’s advertising budget and ultimately, their bottom line.  Merchants can list as many products as they want on Sortprice and not have to worry about paying for fraudulent clicks on particular product listings.  It’s a fairer, more transparent way of doing business and our merchants collectively love the peace of mind they get from us.

We also strive to give shoppers and merchants alike the best shopping technology and tools on the web.  We were the first to expand the online shopping experience to Facebook with our enormously popular Wishlist shopping application, which allows users to build gift lists directly from Sortprice.com and share them with friends and family on their Facebook pages.  Similarly, we built a Facebook Store application for merchants that gives them the ability to sell their products through a virtual store on their individual Facebook profile.  Both of these applications are not only one-of-a-kind, but free to use.

Sortprice is continuously searching for ways to improve the online shopping experience.  In the last year alone we’ve added a Shop-by-Color feature that makes it even easier for a shopper to find what they’re looking for on our site and we’ll be rolling out a few more new technologies as well in the immediate future.  Our commitment to being an industry leader on the technology side almost borders on an obsession but the results speak for themselves.

3. What are the secrets to success for merchants advertising on SortPrice.com?

The Sortprice engine works by relevance and results are driven by what our shoppers are looking for. We use advanced algorithms to display the most relevant search results. Most successful merchants optimize their product data feeds by adding the relevant keywords such as model number/brand/manufacturer/product type and color in the name and description fields on their data feeds.

We strongly recommend that our merchants take advantage of all the benefits that working with Sortprice.com provides. This means finding a price package that best fits their budgets and online advertising goals.  Some merchants choose to list everything while others selectively target certain products, but either way, our pricing structure gives them the flexibility to figure out what works best.  It also means utilizing tools like the Facebook merchant store application, which is free to add and easy to set up with the help of our support team.

4. Who is using SortPrice.com and why?

Because we have thousands of product categories—everything from jewelry to medical supplies to even auto parts—anyone can (and does) utilize Sortprice.  We’ve designed Sortprice to be incredibly easy and even fun to use, so whether you’re a novice online shopper or a seasoned veteran, you will find exactly what you’re looking for.

Additionally, we have one of the most diverse client bases in the shopping search engine industry, encompassing merchants of literally every size and scope.  Of course, you will find the larger national established retail giants on Sortprice.  But we also host thousands of smaller, specialized “mom and pop” retailers that you won’t find anywhere else.  These merchants might otherwise not be able to expand to the internet if not for the value our flat-fee pricing structure provides.  By including them on Sortprice, we’re not only doing our part to level the playing field for merchants.  We believe we’re offering consumers the most choices to make an educated decision when shopping.

5. What are some of the challenges you are seeing in the retail sector during the current economic downturn, and what are you doing to overcome them?

On the merchant side, the obvious implication of a flailing economy is that many retailers are being forced to slash, or even cut entirely, their online advertising budgets.

We’ve stayed in close contact with many of our merchants throughout these troubled times and have tried to work with them to keep them in the fold while still respecting the financial hurdles they are facing, mostly through promotions or by changing the advertising packages they have with us.  We’re also strongly encouraging them to take advantage of the Facebook merchant store application, since it is provides free exposure to them and is something we assist them in setting up.  Additionally, by working with our partners such as MerchantAdvantage, we’re able to do most of the heavy lifting for merchants in maintaining their product listings and data feeds on Sortprice, giving them time to focus on other matters critical to their success.

The interesting thing about the current economic climate is that people are still shopping.  They’re just being smarter about it.  People are genuinely doing their research now and looking for every opportunity to save some money, which makes online shopping, and by extension Sortprice, an even more valuable resource for them.

Bonus Q: How do I get to work with Sortprice.com as an ecommerce merchant?

Setting up an account on Sortprice.com is extremely simple.  Just visit this page to learn more and get started: http://www.sortprice.com/enhanced.html

Chip: Thank you so much Doron for your time and insights on how online merchants can benefit by working with SortPrice.com.

If you want to keep up with all entries as they relate to Insider Edition:  The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing, please click on "Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing" under categories on the left hand side of the eTaildTail blog.

- Chip Arndt

Rank Well on Google Product Search

eTaildTail relies on experts when we can and for online retailers (ecommerce merchants) we found a wonderful article on how best to work with Google Product Search.

MerchantAdvantage helps any ecommerce merchant work with Google Product search and over 200 other marketing channels, so if you are having difficulty feeding your product catalog to Google Product Search and/or working with other marketing and shopping channels, please feel free to contact us.  We help you also analyze cost-effectively all of your marketing campaigns using Chanalytics , which is available as a stand alone product or integrated into our Channel Management products.

The below article from SEOmozBlog about how to leverage Google Product Search will help a lot!  I really liked it.

-- Chip Arndt
Co-Founder, MerchantAdvantage

From SEOmozBlog
By: Tom
April 20, 2009

 

 

Google Base aka Google Shopping aka Google Products

"What do you know about Google Base? If you're running a site which sells something, you should be paying attention to Google Base because it's the service which underpins various vertical search portals from Google, including Google Products.

In case you're not familiar with Google Products and what they look like, let me give you an example:

See how Apple can't even rank top of Google for the phrase 'buy iphone'? Those 3 links above them are pulled from Google Shopping results. So having your products ranking highly in Google Shopping/Products/Base is clearly a good thing. But how do you get good rankings in this arcane Google offshoot? Is it all about pagerank?

Major Ranking Factors For Google Products

Below I present to you a list of the major ranking factors in Google Products, in no particular order. I've not done enough research to determine which are more important than others:..."

CLICK HERE to continue reading....it is worth it!